Jane Mayer is a left-of-center investigative reporter and contributor the New Yorker. Prior to joining that publication, Mayer worked as a White House correspondent and as a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. Mayer has covered issues including U.S. military policy, the Trump administration, and campaign finance. ¹

Mayer is most known for her hostile reporting targeting right-of-center advocacy and political donors, including Art Pope, Robert Mercer, and Charles and David Koch. ^{2 3 4} Mayer wrote the book Dark Money, which alleged that the Kochs and other right-of-center political donors created a network including nonprofit organizations, advocacy organizations, and think tanks to buy power and reshape the Republican Party in accordance with an anti-government agenda. ⁵

Though the book received widespread acclaim from left-of-center media outlets, it has been frequently criticized since its publication for presenting a left-wing, one-sided perspective on political spending. In Dark Money, Mayer decried the “biggest known donors in 2014” for their political spending, while claiming that just “a few of the biggest spenders were now Democrats.” Scott Walter of the right-leaning Capital Research Center (CRC) countered that according to Mayer’s own sources, 52 of the top 100 political donors were Democrats, outnumbering the Republican donors that Mayer alleged wielded improper influence over the political system. ⁶

Other critics argued that the only difference between the network created by the Koch brothers to support libertarian ideals and those created by left-of-center megadonors “is that the Koch brothers are better at achieving their goals.” ⁷ Still others pointed out that Mayer had neglected to target high-profile left-of-center donors in her book, including Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, despite their being among the wealthiest people alive. ⁸

Following Dark Money’s publication, Mayer continued to report for The New Yorker and became an outspoken critic of the Trump campaign and former Trump administration. ⁹ In recent years, Mayer’s reporting has been the subject of several controversies. Critics accused Mayer’s 2019 profile on disgraced U.S. Senator Al Franken (D-MN) of making light of the allegations of sexual harassment against him. ¹⁰

Mayer has also been accused of misleading reporting. In 2018, while covering U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, Mayer reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had been allegedly unresponsive to witnesses seeking to testify in its probe into sexual misconduct claims against Justice Kavanaugh. ¹¹ Critics alleged that the “witnesses” Mayer referenced in the article had no new testimony to offer to the FBI, calling Mayer’s article “lazy high-school gossip-mongering.” ¹²

In August 2021, Mayer was again accused of misleading reporting when she alleged that Arizona State Representative Shawnna Bolick (R-Phoenix) had proposed a “radical reading of Article II of the Constitution.” ¹³ Critics were quick to point out that Mayer misrepresented the interpretation of Article II as “radical,” arguing instead that the proposed interpretation was a well-established judicial fact. ¹⁴

Early Life

Mayer was born in New York City to Meredith Mayer, a painter and printmaker, and William Mayer, a composer. Mayer’s maternal grandfather was Allan Nevins, founder of American Heritage magazine and winner of two Pulitzer Prizes. Mayer’s great-great-grandfather was Emanuel Lehman, who founded the investment bank Lehman Brothers. ¹⁵

In 1977, Mayer graduated from Yale University, where she worked as a campus reporter for Time. After her time at Yale, Mayer attended Oxford University in England. ¹⁶

Early Journalism Career

Mayer has worked in journalism since her graduation from Oxford University. In 1984, she became the first female White House correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, where she also worked as a foreign and war correspondent. In 1995, Mayer joined The New Yorker as a staff writer, where she continues to work as of August 2021. ¹⁷

Throughout the early 2000s, Mayer focused her attention on United States foreign policy, publishing reports regarding the United States War on Terror. Mayer frequently reported on enhanced interrogation techniques and the inner workings of the George W. Bush administration. ¹⁸

Early Books

While working as a journalist, Mayer also published several books throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. In 1988, Mayer co-authored Landslide: The Unmaking of the President, 1984-1988 with Doyle McManus. The book covered the fallout of the Iran-contra scandal and the late Reagan administration and featured claims that President Ronald Reagan was “inattentive and inept” to his duties during his second term. ¹⁹

In 1994, Mayer co-authored Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas with then-New York Times editor Jill Abramson, who would later be accused of plagiarism in a 2019 work. ²⁰ The book detailed the allegations of sexual harassment against U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas by former staffer Anita Hill, claiming that “the falsehoods and distortions involved in the selling of Clarence Thomas to the American people neither started nor ended with the treatment of Anita Hill’s accusations.” Mayer and Abramson further claimed that Justice Thomas’s appointment was “seen as a political end justifying almost any means.” ²¹ The book became the basis of a 1999 movie of the same name and was a finalist for the 1994 National Book Award for Nonfiction. ^{22 23}

In 2008, Mayer published her third book, The Dark Side, about the U.S. War on Terror, which detailed torture techniques used while fighting terrorism in the Middle East. In the book, Mayer argued that the use of torture was central to the battle against terrorism and ineffective at getting information. Mayer also profiled top American officials, claiming that former Vice President Dick Cheney and Counsel to the Vice President David Addington had created the strategy and encouraged its use. ²⁴ The Dark Side was also a finalist for the National Book Award. ²⁵

Early Criticism of Right-of-Center Donors and the Koch Network

Mayer has a long history of partisanship in her investigative journalism work. In the mid-2000s, Mayer began to focus her attacks on businessmen and right-of-center philanthropists Charles and David Koch, alleging that they had used political donations to buy power and reshape the Republican Party. ²⁶

In 2010, Mayer found national recognition after she published an article in The New Yorker alleging that the Koch brothers had “funded stealth attacks on the federal government” during the Obama administration to prevent left-of-center policy implementation on issues including health care, environmentalism, and entitlement programs. Mayer alleged that events held by the Koch-affiliated Americans for Prosperity Foundation were “training session[s] for Tea Party activists” and claimed that the Koch brothers effectively created the Tea Party movement through their network of think tanks and funding organizations to oppose the Obama administration’s agenda. ²⁷

Koch affiliates responded to the piece, with David Koch himself alleging that the story was “ludicrous.” A lawyer for Koch Industries allegedly filed a complaint with The New Yorker, though the outlet did not make any changes to the article following the complaint. ²⁸

Several years later, Mayer claimed that the Koch brothers had launched an investigation into her and falsely accused her of plagiarism. Though Mayer only traced a private investigation into her to the firm Vigilant Resources International, she claimed in a later book that a “boiler room” operation including individuals close to Koch Industries had been responsible for the investigation. Mayer further maintained that an unnamed “source” had told her that if the Koch network could not find negative information to discredit Mayer, “they’d create it.” ²⁹

Representatives for Koch Industries called the allegations “grossly inaccurate” and insisted that there had been no investigation into Mayer led by the firm. ³⁰

North Carolina Reporting

In October 2011, Mayer published an article entitled “State for Sale: A Conservative Multimillionaire Has Taken Control of North Carolina, One of 2012’s Top Battlegrounds.” The article detailed right-of-center businessman Art Pope, chairman and CEO of Variety Wholesalers, and his foundation’s philanthropic activities in the state, alleging that he had purchased support through campaign donations to Republicans in the state who secured both houses of the North Carolina legislature in 2010. ³¹

The article alleged that Pope had collaborated with Republican strategist Ed Gillespie to fund advertising campaigns against left-of-center candidates, quoting a defeated public official who called Pope the “sugar daddy” of organizations that worked to defeat him. Mayer cast Republican legislative successes in the state as “Pope’s triumph” because he had funded some right-of-center candidates and claimed that he had “been spending millions in an attempt to change the direction of American politics,” quoting several Democratic officials who claimed Pope was trying to “buy power.” ³²

Critics attacked Mayer’s portrayal of Pope, with Scott Walter arguing in Philanthropy Daily that Mayer left out critical information regarding the balance of spending in the election cycle, in which Democrats outspent Republicans by $2 million. Walter also criticized Mayer for stressing that contributions from Pope and Pope-affiliate organizations made up three-quarters of independent giving in the 2010 election cycle, while omitting the fact that Pope was not the largest donor to many of these “affiliated” groups and that such donations made up only one-fifteenth of the total political spending that cycle. ³³

Dark Money

In 2016, Mayer published her fourth book, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right. The book centered on the political spending of conservative donors Charles and David Koch since 1980, alleging that the Kochs had used political donations to buy power and reshape the Republican Party into a right-wing, antigovernment organization. ³⁴

Mayer further alleged in the book that the network of right-of-center organizations funded by Koch affiliates had taken over American politics and claimed that it was unlike any political network on the left. Mayer also claimed that the use of the Koch network, including nonprofit organizations, tax-exempt advocacy organizations, and think tanks, was intentionally devised to mask the source of political donations, introducing the idea of “dark money.” The book also attacked prominent conservative figures including Heritage Foundation founder Richard Mellon Scaife, philanthropist John Olin, and the Bradley brothers. ³⁵

Liberal Reception

The book received widespread acclaim from left-of-center media outlets, with the New York Times naming it one of the “10 Best Books of 2016.” ³⁶ Reviewers for the Washington Post and the New York Times described the book as listing “the impact of this wealthy conservative cadre on the Republican Party and the recent course of American politics” and exposing “the Kochs’ bizarre and Byzantine family history and the scale and scope of their influence.” ^{37 38} The book became a New York Times national bestseller. ³⁹

Criticism

While the book received widespread praise on the political left, right-of-center critics panned its release, alleging that it was one-sided in its approach and ignored even more extensive “dark money” networks on the left, such as those funded by billionaire George Soros. ^{40 41}

As Mayer decried the “biggest known donors in 2014” for their political spending, she claimed in the book that “a few of the biggest spenders were now Democrats.” Capital Research Center writer Scott Walter pointed out that according to Mayer’s own sources, 52 of the top 100 political donors were Democrats, outnumbering the Republican donors that Mayer alleged wielded improper influence over the political system. ⁴²

In a January 2017 piece, Jim Geraghty of National Review argued that Mayer’s description of the Koch network spreading across the country by investing in intellectuals, think tanks, and grassroots citizens organizations to form a “libertarian production line” was nothing more than “effective activism” aligned with libertarian values. Geraghty also pointed out that the “only real difference between the Koch brothers and Tom Steyer or George Soros is that the Koch brothers are better at achieving their goals.” ⁴³

In a review published following Dark Money’s publication, Wall Street Journal reporter George Melloan pointed out that the book did not target any major left-of-center billionaire donors, omitting some of the richest people in the world like Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Tom Steyer, Eric Schmidt, and Steven Spielberg. The review also alleged that Mayer left out critical information to paint right-of-center donors in a negative light, such as failing to mention that left-of-center figures like the late liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had attended the same right-of-center events which Mayer called a mix of “Maoist cultural reeducation camps and Club Med.” ⁴⁴

Other critics alleged that Mayer’s characterization of Fred Koch, Charles and David Koch’s father, as being affiliated with Nazi Germany was misleading and without context. Mayer alleged that Fred Koch had helped to build a Nazi refinery that “Adolf Hitler personally greenlighted.” Following the book’s publication, Koch Industries responded by pointing out that Koch had built a cracking unit in 1935 that was used in the refinery, but that its engagement with the refinery had ended “nearly six years before Germany invaded Poland.” ⁴⁵

Mayer responded to the additional context by doubling down on her position, claiming that the statement was “splitting-hairs [sic]” and arguing that it had confirmed that “Fred Koch was integrally involved in the creation of a German refinery that Adolf Hitler personally greenlighted.” ⁴⁶ Critics claimed that the context did not implicate Fred Koch in the Nazi regime, pointing out that prominent companies including Ford, General Motors, Coca-Cola, MGM, and IBM had similar relationships with the early Nazi regime that Mayer did not mention. ⁴⁷

Post-Dark Money Journalism

Following Dark Money’s publication, Mayer has continued to criticize right-of-center figures and organizations though her position as a contributor to the left-of-center New Yorker. As of 2021, Mayer remains a writer for The New Yorker and often contributes to other publications, including the New York Review of Books and the Washington Post. ⁴⁸

2016 Election Reporting

Throughout the 2016 election cycle, Mayer criticized former President Donald Trump and his campaign. Mayer also continued her attacks on the Koch network during the 2016 election cycle, claiming that they were attempting to “fund a libertarian revolution in America.” ⁴⁹ Mayer also alleged that despite the Koch brothers’ condemnation of President Trump during his campaign, they had funded “fearmongering and racial intolerance” by supporting Americans for Prosperity (AFP). ⁵⁰

In summer of 2016, following reports that Russia had hacked into the Democratic National Committee (DNC)’s emails, Mayer claimed that President Trump “had all but begged Russia” to “engage in cyber espionage against the Democratic nominee” after President Trump joked about them finding “30,000 emails” in the servers. In the same article, Mayer cited a historian who supported then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and claimed that President Trump’s offhand comment was “borderline treason.” ⁵¹

Two months later, Mayer published another article entitled “Donald Trump, American Oligarch” in which she claimed that President Trump’s behavior mirrored that of a Russian oligarch. ⁵² Throughout the Trump administration, Mayer pushed the theory that Russia had interfered with the United States election in 2016. In September 2018, Mayer cited several Democratic operatives and former government officials in an article which claimed that Russian election interference had likely caused Hillary Clinton to lose the 2020 election. ⁵³

On October 29, 2016, just days before the 2016 presidential election, Mayer published an article claiming that then-FBI Director James Comey, an appointee of President Barack Obama, had broken with U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) protocol by sending a letter to Congress admitting that the FBI had found emails relevant to the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. Mayer alleged that Director Comey’s actions were a “striking break” from policy norms and claimed that “legal authorities” were concerned that his decision could affect the outcome of the 2016 election. ⁵⁴

Trump Cabinet

Immediately following President Trump’s election, Mayer criticized the Trump administration’s incoming members, including U.S. Secretary of Education nominee Betsy DeVos and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator nominee Scott Pruitt. ^{55 56} Mayer also published a profile of Trump campaign donor Robert Mercer in which she included statements from current and former employees at Mercer’s hedge fund, Renaissance Technologies, claiming that he had downplayed the dangers of nuclear war, dismissed climate change, and showed “contempt for the social safety net.” ⁵⁷

Fox News

In March 2019, Mayer published an article called “The Making of the Fox News White House” in which she alleged that Fox News was a propaganda outlet. Mayer cited far-left critics who claimed that the media outlet was a “radicalization model” for the Republican Party. Mayer’s article concluded that the Trump administration and Fox News were “seamlessly symbiotic” and claimed that both organizations worked by “spreading fear…to keep their supporters engaged. ⁵⁸ The original article, however, was filled with inaccuracies, including claims of a “catch and kill” offer regarding Stormy Daniels, an incorrect statement that Fox News host Sean Hannity was White House Deputy Chief of Staff Bill Shine’s children’s godfather, and misstatements about several Fox News employees’ jobs. ⁵⁹

In July 2020, Mayer published another article claiming that the Trump administration weakened federal health and safety regulations to benefit large businesses. In the same article, Mayer alleged that the U.S. Department of Labor under the Trump administration had worked to expel a union from a factory owned by a donor to the Trump campaign. ⁶⁰

Mayer also attacked then-U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), calling him President Trump’s “enabler-in-chief,” accusing him of abandoning pandemic relief efforts in March 2020, and claiming that he “couldn’t care less about hypocrisy” and was “immune to shame” in pursuing judicial nominations. ⁶¹ Even after Sen. McConnell denounced President Trump for his alleged role in promoting claims of election fraud, Mayer accused him of acting exclusively out of “self-interest.” ⁶²

Reporting Controversies

Kavanaugh Confirmation Hearings

In 2018, Mayer and Ronan Farrow published extensive coverage of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Bret Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings. Mayer reported that the FBI had been allegedly unresponsive to witnesses seeking to testify into its probe into allegations of sexual misconduct against Justice Kavanaugh. ⁶³ Mayer also claimed that Republican U.S. Senate staffers had interfered with one of Justice Kavanaugh’s accuser’s abilities to give testimony before the U.S. Senate and claimed that the FBI “ignored” testimonies. ^{64 65}

Charles C. W. Cooke, a writer with National Review, blasted the series of articles for relying on “witnesses” who had no firsthand knowledge of the allegations to which they claimed to be attempting to provide testimony. One witness cited by Mayer and Farrow, Kenneth Appold, claimed that he had heard that Justice Kavanaugh had exposed himself to another student in college, but when Mayer and Farrow contacted the student who had allegedly told Appold about the incident, he had no memory of it. ⁶⁶

Cooke criticized Mayer and Farrow for running the story, given that Appold had no reliable information to provide to the FBI and that they did not find any corroborating information, and claimed the article as “lazy high-school gossip-mongering.” ⁶⁷

“The Big Money Behind the Big Lie”

After President Trump’s 2020 loss, Mayer continued to focus on his influence on the Republican Party, publishing an article entitled “The Big Money Behind the Big Lie” in August 2021 that claimed powerful right-of-center philanthropic organizations were funding electoral conspiracy theories. The article alleged that the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation was also funding far-right electoral policy advocacy. ⁶⁸

Critics alleged that Mayer’s focus on Bradley Foundation funding unfairly demonized conservative organizations that spent relatively little time on election-related issues and improperly equated Bradley Foundation funding for various organizations with funding for far-right electoral policy implementation. ⁶⁹ Critics further attacked Mayer for neglecting to mention that left-of-center organizations, including the Ford Foundation, the Democracy Alliance, and the Open Society Foundations (OSF), had poured tens of millions into election turnout initiatives to influence election outcomes. ⁷⁰

In the same article, Mayer alleged that Arizona State Representative Shawnna Bolick (R-Phoenix) had proposed a “radical reading of Article II of the Constitution” after Rep. Bolick proposed a bill which would allow the Arizona legislature to dictate the state’s Electoral College votes if it disagreed with the popular vote outcome. ⁷¹

Critics countered that Mayer misrepresented the interpretation of Article II as “radical,” arguing instead that it was a well-established judicial fact that state legislatures have the power to choose state electors. Critics also noted that Mayer called the proposal a part of “Independent Legislature Doctrine,” a term never before used in judicial opinion, and misrepresented the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore as being a relatively obscure opinion, despite the fact that it was “the most intensely debated opinion of the past half century.” ⁷²

Though Mayer allegedly cast the interpretation of Article II as a move by radical Republicans, opponents noted that even left-of-center U.S. Supreme Court Justices such as Elena Kagan had supported the state’s total authority over its ability to choose electors. ⁷³ Critics also accused Mayer of misrepresenting a brief filed by the Honest Elections Project (HEP) with the U.S. Supreme Court as being on the issue of post-election changes in rules, when it actually focused on the right to change rules in advance of an election. ⁷⁴

Al Franken Controversy

In 2019, Mayer published a controversial article in which she portrayed disgraced former U.S. Senator Al Franken (D-MN), who resigned in December 2017 following allegations of sexual impropriety, as having been “ghosted” by America. Eight women came forward accusing Sen. Franken of sexual harassment, including forced physical contact, prompting him to resign after 3 dozen U.S. Senators from his own party called for him to step down. ⁷⁵

In the piece, Mayer detailed Sen. Franken and his former U.S. Senate colleagues’ “regrets” surrounding his resignation. Mayer also quoted Sen. Franken’s friends and associates casting doubt on conservative talk show host Leeann Tweeden’s allegations against him, despite her earlier pieces in 2019 supporting an FBI investigation into Justice Kavanaugh based on unsupported allegations of sexual assault. Mayer went so far as to write that Tweeden’s resistance to the assault, in which she fought him off and expressed anger, had been “scripted by [Franken]” as part of a performance. Mayer also claimed that Tweeden may have had “reasons to worry about how her story would be received.” ⁷⁶

In promoting her article, Mayer tweeted that “Almost NOTHING His Main Accuser Said checks out” and claimed that Sen. Franken was “railroaded.” Even after the executive editor of Lawfare accused Mayer of “rewriting history,” Mayer doubled down on her claims, stating that “sometimes the first draft of history is wrong.” ⁷⁷

Even traditionally left-of-center sources criticized Mayer’s characterization of Sen. Franken. Christina Cauterucci, a writer for the left-of-center media outlet Slate, claimed that Mayer’s piece added up to a “misreading of the #MeToo movement and a miscasting of what the allegations against Franken were actually about.” Cauterucci went on to note that some of the same pieces of “evidence” marshaled by Mayer to discredit Tweeden, like photos of Tweeden and Sen. Franken laughing together years after the incident, were similar to pieces of “evidence” disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein used to try to declare his innocence. ⁷⁸

Vox writer Matthew Yglesias claimed that Mayer’s piece argued that “Franken was wronged” by arguing in essence that “what he did just wasn’t that bad.” ⁷⁹ Yglesias went on to argue that Sen. Franken was right to resign, even if he could have continued to serve from a “purely self-interested perspective,” and that dismissing allegations against him because other public figures have allegedly done worse set a negative precedent. ⁸⁰

The traditionally left-leaning Rolling Stone was even more severe in its criticism of Mayer, accusing her of “attempting to discredit Tweeden and painting her as a pawn of the right with a demonstrated history of fudging facts.” ⁸¹ The article also prompted a fierce debate on social media, with writer Amanda Marcotte accusing Mayer of painting Sen. Franken’s accusers as hysterical and dishonest and others suggesting that Mayer undermined the seriousness of the allegations against Sen. Franken. ⁸²

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11. Mayer, Jane, and Ronan Farrow. “The Confusion Surrounding the F.B.I.’S RENEWED Investigation of Brett Kavanaugh.” The New Yorker, September 30, 2018. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-confusion-surrounding-the-fbis-renewed-investigation-of-brett-kavanaugh.
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61. Mayer, Jane. “How Mitch MCCONNELL Became Trump’s Enabler-in-Chief.” The New Yorker, April 10, 2020. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/20/how-mitch-mcconnell-became-trumps-enabler-in-chief.
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63. Mayer, Jane, and Ronan Farrow. “The Confusion Surrounding the F.B.I.’S RENEWED Investigation of Brett Kavanaugh.” The New Yorker, September 30, 2018. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-confusion-surrounding-the-fbis-renewed-investigation-of-brett-kavanaugh.
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